Leave the lights on, and cameras help.  

You could also look into non-traditional lending options like hard money or private lenders. 

In regards to buying before winter in light of having a winter vacancy, I honestly wouldn't consider that as a reason NOT to buy instead in the calculations just budget for the off-chance it stays vacant until the middle of March. 

If your deal lands you a return worth the time and effort beyond what you could get passively elsewhere, then that is a sign for a green light.

Then there is buy take title light fix up resell  that has been coined wholetailing  :)  at least on this site.Then there is buying and doing major reno and reselling  this is wholesaling or another term is fix and flip ??

@Aaron Cox I use the 1% rule lightly, so it’s always close or more than 1%.

For a savvy buyer a mini-split will have higher value than the traditional system.

You have to get a good deal of course and this financing is way easier than traditional financing.

It's so subjective (what someone considers major vs light rehab, and the areas you could buy in) that it's hard to nail down a specific number for you on that without narrowing down several things.4) Depends on where you are looking. 

Let's say you bought five $200K houses using traditional financing and put 25% down.